]]>By: Rafi Simontonhttp://www.northernway.org/weblog/?p=690&cpage=1#comment-32590
Thu, 13 Dec 2012 02:33:49 +0000http://www.northernway.org/weblog/?p=690#comment-32590An attention grabbing amalgam of bad science, inadequte cultural studies, simplistic spirituality. Different New Age writers quoting the same few inadequate sources over and over. Makes it seem that there is far more supporting data than is actually the case.

The date is allegedly from the Mayan calendar. The source, a stone carving, is not intact. Popularized by Jose Arguelles in books and his gathering for Harmonic Convergence of 1987. Problem is little independent corroboration. Besides, the date is sort of l;ke how a 24 hour clock resets at 00:00. The 13.0.0.0 baktun (3114 BC) start/finish date does not corrolate with any stellar or planetary cycle. Nor with any astrological cycle like precession. And there is nothing in anything Mayan writing specifically warning about any doomsday!

There is also a book by John Major Jenkins called “Galactic Alignment” I have it; space doesn’t permit a thorough critique here. The cover proclaims “the transformation of consciousness according to Mayan, Egyptian, and Vedic traditions.” Consider this: any one of those would require in-depth knowledge of several languages, real cultural expertise, and coping with historical records covering millennia. Not to mention some awesome spiritual abilities and decades of experience.

The third source is Terrence McKenna’s Timewave theories. Again, I have this stuff. He was a brilliant psychedelic explorer and free-lance inventor. He noticed patterns in human history and came up with an analytical computer program based on the hexagrams of the I Ching that seems to produce the same wave shapes as history. Which converged at 12/23/2012. But there are problems here, too. How much of the totall of all human history is included or excluded? How is the I Ching rendered into an algorhythm? Was it made to fit the data?

As for the latest scary asteroid, it’s 4.3 million miles away. Remember, NASA doesn’t have the shuttle program any longer and that glorious moonwalk was in 1969(!) They have to have some way of getting noticed. Protecting us from some space threat is always a good one.